Summer vacation

The dogs and I are on vacation. Sort of.

We have four weeks until our next competitive venue, an agility trial in August.

This means four weekends at home in a row.

FOUR WEEKENDS AT HOME IN A ROW!

Holy buckets. I can’t remember the last time I had one weekend at home, let alone four.

It makes me a little giddy.

Okay, by the third weekend I’ll be bored and by the fourth weekend I’ll be climbing the walls, wondering why I didn’t find somewhere to enter. But right now, it sounds very sweet. My to-do list is stretching into infinity.

And of course, I won’t actually STAY home the entire weekend. I’ve already set up some lessons with students and training dates with friends. But I’ll have a break from packing suitcases, loading the van and road tripping to shows.

Breaks like this are important. I don’t know about Phoenix, but I need a mental break from being gone every weekend, not to mention needing to catch up on things around the house before they get scary. Or scarier.

Looking back at my calendar, we’ve trialed eight of the last 11 weekends and that was just the right amount for me. Some folks trial nearly every single weekend this time of the year. I don’t know how they do it. Seriously. Not sure it would be as much fun if I did it every single weekend. Not to mention the stress of having a training problem pop up and you're entered every weekend for the next two months and then what do you do?

Looking forward, there are great "local" trials 10 out of 11 weekends September through November. I am going to show restraint and only enter nine of them, staging “off” weekends at strategic points.

One year, I entered seven weekends of fabulous fall shows in a row. By the fifth weekend, it wasn’t quite as fabulous as I’d thought it would be. By the sixth weekend, I swore I’d never do it again. By the seventh weekend, I just wanted it to freaking be over so we could go home.

I'm really looking forward to staying home on our summer vacation!